


armor

by nebulera



Series: of beasts [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Flash Forward, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24766996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulera/pseuds/nebulera
Summary: He’d given Maul a piece of himself and saidit’s yours.
Relationships: Darth Maul/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: of beasts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021009
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	armor

“Maul.”

He heard footsteps descend behind him, trying to catch up. Maul turned to meet the person he feared and hoped it would be.

There Rex stood, chasing him from where they parted. Maul was set to leave, and he bid the good captain farewell before quietly stalking away from the small rebel cell Rex had been working with; he aided when Rex requested it of him, but now it seemed all the heavy lifting had been removed from his shoulders. He did his fair amount of inconveniencing the Empire; helping Rex had merely been an extension of that, but would be there when the captain needed him.

“What, no goodbye kiss?” Rex half-joked, but it was not a joking matter to Maul. He smirked and closed the space between them, pressing his palm to Rex’s chest and giving him a quick, close-mouthed kiss.

“Happy?”

“Sure,” Rex said, a smile spreading across his face. “Can’t stay a little longer?”

“I’m afraid not.” Maul took a few steps back. His hand slid away from Rex’s chest. 

“Wait,” Rex said, and he looked down at his hands. Maul followed. Rex was holding onto one of his vambraces; the left one was missing from his forearm, though his hand and elbow guard remained. 

Rex stood there, his face unguarded if Maul ever saw it. A beat passed and then he passed it across the space between them. “Here.” 

Maul took it. “What’s it for?”

“It’s for you.”

Maul chuckled. “I don’t need armor,” he said, putting it on.

Though he was taller than Rex, he was leaner, so he had no trouble sliding the gauntlet on with ease. There were no awkward mechanics involved. It felt somewhat clunky on his arm, but that’s only because Maul was not used to wearing that sort of thing.

Rex hugged his arms, watching him. “I know you don’t.”

Maul examined how it fit on his forearm. The white and blue did not go with his unspoken color scheme, but he rather liked how it stood out. He liked having Rex’s colors on him, but this was still peculiar.

“Then why give it to me? You need it more than I do.”

Rex looked down and away from him, his teeth shifting his jaw to the side. It did not take the Force to recognize something different with Rex. Not wrong, just slightly different from how he had been before he handed Maul the vambrace. Rex’s finger tapped against his bicep.

“I just want it with you.” He finally looked up at Maul. His eyes grew soft and the rest of his expression fell suit. The subtle creases at the corner of his eyes along with the gentle way he held himself only further revealed to Maul how quickly he was aging. It came out when he smiled, when he laughed. Clones aged double the rate of normal humans; a full understanding of that fact put a sour taste in Maul’s mouth, and twisted his stomach in a way he could not explain. 

Maul looked down at the vambrace and ran his fingers across the engraved tallies. They reigned across Rex’s armor; one for every brother killed under his command. 

(If Rex had given this to him before they were… _whatever_ they were to each other, Maul would have thought it was a strange, morbid joke. The crashed venator was not a slip of his hand, though he regrets the pain he caused him.)

“Anyway,” Rex said. It was a simple way to put it, _Rex said,_ because Maul couldn’t read his face, and what the Force translated was equally confusing. 

“It’s Phase One. They don’t make ‘em like those anymore.”

“I’ll keep it safe for you.”

“It’s yours, Maul.”

There was something on the tip of the captain’s tongue that he would not let out. He wanted to tell him to quit dancing around and say what he so badly wanted, to say what burdened his heart, but being around the human so much had actually provided him some understanding of social cues and that certain expressions would only be met with an assumption of cruelty. Ironically, his being around the captain also showed him how universal the bottling of emotions could be. The Sith were taught that containing passion only meant a greater fallout when released. It was encouraged.

He would not pry, now. The captain was no coward; whatever he wanted to tell him would be revealed soon enough.

Maul knew this would be the last time they parted. When he inevitably got the next call from him, he would not leave again. His desire to follow Rex where he went grew every day. But, until then…

He started to back away. “Do stay out of trouble, Captain.”

Rex nodded. He smiled one more time. “See you soon,” he said, then went back to his trouble.

  
  


…

  
  


It was not until many years later that Maul found out the sacredness of armor-swapping, and how many clones did to show their camaraderie, but also their bond as brothers; how two became one. Rex had become his life, his other half.

It also took Maul a long time to realize that Rex was trying to say that he loved him in that moment, and Maul was stupidly oblivious. It wasn’t a shame; Rex had told him many times after that day, but it was the giving of the vambrace that was his great declaration. He’d given a piece of himself to Maul and said _it’s yours._

“Master?”

Maul stumbles out of his memory only to cringe at the title. He looks up from his seat at the concerned figure hovering over him. Wild space buns greet him. Wisps of brown hair fall past the girl’s cheeks.

“What if I was meditating?” Maul asks, raising a brow.

Rey looks at him stupid. “You weren’t, you were just thinking really loudly. Are you all right?”

Maul sighs. “I’m fine, young one,” he says.

The _Millenium_ _Falcon_ moves gracefully through time and space. For the second time in the last three decades, the galaxy finally slows as yet another Empire falls. Maul has lived to see history repeat itself, including his old master who’d found a way to survive and continue haunting him. The girl had stopped Sidious, Maul discovered, with only a fraction of the usual Jedi training. Admirable, he believes, but she still had much to learn. He teaches her not one way of the Force, but the many outlets it may be utilized. For what, though, he leaves to her.

Maul’s Sith days were far behind him. They’d been disconnected from him for longer than he practiced it.

“What were you thinking about?” Rey asks.

He lightly taps his fingers against the gauntlet he wears every day. The blue has faded, and the marks are not as crisp as they once were. The day Rex had given it to him was so long ago, yet he could recall the memory like it was yesterday. He wouldn’t forget as he begins to live for himself and for this girl. Maul misses him dearly, but he knows, pulling his wrist to his chest, that Rex is always with him.

“My captain.”

**Author's Note:**

> “Say what burdens your heart” is a great line from Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
> 
> This is part of an au I’ve been wanting to write a different fic for for the last couple weeks. This is just a little extension of that. I promise it’s happier than it seems.
> 
> yay or nay


End file.
